please help lol

i dropped triple science (im in year 10, chose the subject bc my parent made me pick it) and i dont understand a thing about chemistry, despite revising and searching it up. it just doesnt make any sense. can someone please explain for dummies what an ion is because thats what im rlly struggling on, ill be so grateful<3

Wait, why do you need to revise if you dropped the class?

because i'm still doing combined science

Ah ok, which exam board? I´m doing CIE igcse coordinated sciences this year.

i dropped triple science (im in year 10, chose the subject bc my parent made me pick it) and i dont understand a thing about chemistry, despite revising and searching it up. it just doesnt make any sense. can someone please explain for dummies what an ion is because thats what im rlly struggling on, ill be so grateful<3

im not exactly sure, i think i remember something abt AQA or Edexcel tho

thank you so much for the help i think i understand now

i dropped triple science (im in year 10, chose the subject bc my parent made me pick it) and i dont understand a thing about chemistry, despite revising and searching it up. it just doesnt make any sense. can someone please explain for dummies what an ion is because thats what im rlly struggling on, ill be so grateful<3

The issue is that by doing triple science your Chemistry grade will not influence your other science grades
If you do combined and mess up Chemistry, you will bring down the grades

Have you gone to your teacher to ask for some help?
I can see you've already got some help on ions so just suggesting (I'd assume it's not too late to go back into Triple Science however please don't go back if you don't want to) - All my teachers did combined (and one of them even got into university to do medicine) and teach me triple so it's obviously not something that's needed!

Long answer nice and short. An ion is an atom with a charge. Could be a positive or negative charge depending if they gained an electron(s) or lost an electron(s)
Gaining electrons means negative charge as electrons are negative and vice versa ofc.


Also I suggest getting a tutor or watching yt vids if you're confused
You shouldn't be stuck on the definition of an ion at this point... gl girl

im aware that each science grade is separate in triple science, but the problem with me is that im absolutely hopeless at science. im talking around 18% on those tests each term for chem and physics, and biology is ok but im only passing on scores by a smidge. when i leave secondary id like to be a nurse or work in a nursery/primary school. ive heard you dont need triple science to be a nurse, but its more helpful for later on. idk but im very glad i dropped triple, it was waaay too stressful.

hi! I'm a year 11 so I can help as I am doing triple.
an ion is basically an atom with a charge. usually, atoms are stable (which is why they don't react).
some atoms, such as hydrogen, are unstable. hydrogen needs 2 electrons on the outermost shell to be stable; however, it only has one. that is why you would consider a single hydrogen atom as an ION.

you may have seen hydrogen written as H2. this is because hydrogen atoms only have one electron on the outer shell. if there are two hydrogen atoms, they can join covalently, meaning that they would now have 2 electrons each, so they are now stable. so now, it is NOT an ion.

I hope this helped somehow.

You've made a few errors here:

"usually, atoms are stable (which is why they don't react)"is misleading. By stable do you mean they usually have the same number of protons and electrons? Also reactivity depends on how full the electron shell is and how far the electrons in that outer shell are from the nucleus. This influences how easy it is to gain or lose an electron. Atoms do react! Unless they're noble gases of course.

""hydrogen needs 2 electrons on the outermost shell to be stable; however, it only has one. that is why you would consider a single hydrogen atom as an ION."

Incorrect. A hydrogen atom has one proton and one electron. It does not have a charge and so is not an ion. It only becomes an ion when it loses that electron and becomes H+, which could also be described as a proton.

Hopefully this is helpful and not patronising. I'm a Chemistry teacher so couldn't resist correcting.

im not exactly sure, i think i remember something abt AQA or Edexcel tho